Channel quality reporting in a multi-antenna wireless communication system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9680607-B2
Application number	US-201314430736-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 13, 2013
Priority date	Sep 28, 2012
Publication date	Jun 13, 2017
Grant date	Jun 13, 2017

Abstract

In MU-MIMO scenarios, a receiving node ( 1000 ) provides feedback on a feedback channel to a transmitting node ( 1300 ) regarding a channel between the receiving and the transmitting nodes ( 1000, 1300 ). To reduce signaling overhead, a feedback channel structure, such as HS-DPCCH, is used in which the fields that carry feedback information are specifically agreed upon. For example, in uplink signaling in a 4-branch MIMO, it was agreed that two codewords be used for CQI reporting and to send all information in one subframe. This structure is valid when the preferred rank is 2, 3, or 4. But when the preferred rank is 1, the CQI information does not fill the two codewords. To address such issues, mechanisms to map such feedback information to completely fill the allocated space are proposed. Padding and repeating are examples of such mechanisms.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed at a receiving node of a wireless communication system to provide feedback to a transmitting node, the method comprising:
determining a channel state of a wireless channel between the transmitting node and the receiving node based on a reference signal transmitted from the transmitting node, the channel state comprising a plurality of feedback parameters, each feedback parameter indicating a quality characteristic of the wireless channel as estimated by the receiving node or indicating a preference of the receiving node in a transmission characteristic of data transmission from the transmitting node;
filling a feedback subframe based on the channel state, the feedback subframe comprising a plurality of feedback fields, each feedback field corresponding to one of the plurality of feedback parameters of the channel state and allocated to carry a value of a corresponding feedback parameter, and a field length of each feedback field being predetermined, wherein filling the feedback subframe comprises:
for each feedback field, generating a feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter;
for at least one feedback field, determining whether an extended value is required for the corresponding feedback parameter;
for each feedback field that has been determined to require the extended value, generating the extended value for the corresponding feedback parameter, a length of the extended value being equal to the field length of that feedback field and different from a length of the feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter;
for each feedback field for which the extended value has been generated, filling that feedback field with the extended value of the corresponding feedback parameter; and
for each feedback field for which the extended value has not been generated, filling that feedback field with the feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter,
wherein for each feedback field for which the extended value has been generated, a length of the corresponding feedback parameter's extended value is equal to the field length of that feedback field, and a length of the corresponding feedback parameter's feedback value is less than the field length of that feedback field, and
wherein for each feedback field for which the extended value has not been generated, a length of the corresponding feedback parameter's feedback value is equal to the field length of that feedback field; and
sending a feedback signal to the transmitting node over a feedback channel, the feedback signal including the feedback subframe,
wherein the feedback subframe is such that upon reconstruction of the feedback subframe at the transmitting node, for at least one feedback field, further processing is required to determine whether that feedback field is carrying the feedback value or carrying the extended value of the corresponding feedback parameter, and
wherein the feedback value is the value of the corresponding feedback parameter, and the extended value is a value that requires further processing to extract the feedback value.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of determining whether the extended value is required for the feedback parameter corresponding to the feedback field comprises determining that the extended value is required when a feedback value of a reference feedback parameter is equal to a reference value, the reference feedback parameter being different than the feedback parameter corresponding to the feedback field.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of generating the extended value for the feedback parameter corresponding to the feedback field comprises:
padding the feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter with sufficient number of bits such that the length of the padded feedback value is equal to the field length of that feedback field,
wherein the padded feedback value is the extended value.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the step of generating the feedback value of the feedback parameter corresponding to that feedback field comprises generating the feedback value with a resolution of possible values that is greater than half of the field length of that feedback field.

5. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the plurality of feedback parameters of the channel state include a channel quality indicator, a rank indicator, and a precoding control indicator, the channel quality indicator representing a quality of the wireless channel between the transmitting node and the receiving node as estimated by the receiving node, the rank indicator representing a rank of data transmission preferred by the receiving node for data transmissions of data from the transmitting node, and the precoding control indicator representing a precoding code applicable to the preferred rank,
wherein the feedback subframe comprises a channel quality indicator field, a rank indicator field, and a precoding control indicator field respectively corresponding to the channel quality indicator, the rank indicator, and the precoding control indicator parameters,
wherein the step of determining the extended value is required for the channel quality indicator comprises determining that an extended channel quality indicator is required when it is determined that the rank indicator is equal to one, and
wherein the step of generating the extended channel quality indicator value comprises padding the channel quality indicator value with additional bits so as to sufficiently fill the channel quality indicator field of the feedback subframe.

6. A method performed at a transmitting node of a wireless communication system to provide transmission control information to a receiving node, the method comprising:
reconstructing a feedback subframe from a feedback signal received from the receiving node over a feedback channel, the feedback subframe comprising a plurality of feedback fields, each feedback field corresponding to one of a plurality of feedback parameters and allocated to carry a value of a corresponding feedback parameter, and a field length of each feedback field being predetermined;
for at least one feedback field, determining whether that feedback field is carrying an extended value or a feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter, the feedback value being a value of the corresponding feedback parameter, and the extended value being a value that requires further processing to extract the feedback value;
for each feedback field determined to carry the extended value, retrieving the extended value from that feedback field, and extracting the feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter from the extended value, wherein extracting the feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter from the extended value comprises stripping off padded bits from the extended value;
for each feedback field determined to carry the feedback value, retrieving the feedback value of the corresponding feedback parameter from that feedback field; and
sending the transmission control information to the receiving node based on the feedback values, the transmission control information specifying transmission characteristics that will be applied by the transmitting node in transmitting data to the receiving node.

7. The method of claim 6 ,
wherein for each feedback field from which the extended value has been retrieved, a length of the extended value is equal to the field length of that feedback field, and a length of the extracted feedback value is less than the field length of that feedback field, and
wherein for each feedback field from which the feedback value has been retrieved, a length of the feedback value is equal to the field length of that feedback field.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein

Assignees

• Ericsson Telefon Ab L M
• ERICSSON TELEFON AB L M (publ)

Inventors

• Nammi Sairamesh

Classifications

• H04L43/08

  Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters · CPC title

• H04L1/0028

  Formatting · CPC title

• H04L1/0067

  Rate matching (H04L1/0013 and H04L1/08 take precedence) · CPC title

• H04L1/0031

  Multiple signaling transmission (H04L1/1664, F15 take precedence) · CPC title

• H04L1/0073 Primary

  Special arrangements for feedback channel · CPC title